


Paternal Instincts

by Severina



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Blogathon 2005
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-06
Updated: 2005-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-10 04:57:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by the tale of two penguins.  Read the authors notes for details. ;)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paternal Instincts

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Blogathon 2005.  
> One of my Blogathon sponsors, "moose74", told me the True Story of Roy and Silo. Roy and Silo are two penguins at the NYC Zoo. They do all the things that penguins in love do -- they twine their necks together, and "talk" to each other, and have sex. Thing is, they are both male. :)
> 
> So. Roy and Silo saw all the other male-female penguins nesting. And they wanted a baby too. So they made a nest and got an egg-shaped rock and sat on it and patiently waited for it to hatch. Finally the zookeeper had pity on them and gave them a fertilized egg, and Roy and Silo took turns sitting on it until it hatched. So their baby, Tango, has two daddies.
> 
> BEST STORY EVER.
> 
> moose74's fic request was a Brian/Justin spin on the Roy/Silo theme. Yes. You did read that right. Don't worry -- this is not an mpreg! But it is a bit... crazy. ;)

Brian isn't quite sure how it happened. One moment, or so it seemed, he was pounding Justin's sweet ass so furiously the table screeched across the floor with each well-aimed thrust. The next, he and Justin were picking up a copy of Today's Parent at the grocery store.

Brian blames Michael, of course.

Michael, with his constant "oooh, Hunter graduated from high school" and "oooh, Hunter's applied to college" and "oooh, Hunter finished his cereal." And then there was Jenny Rebecca. The way her big brown eyes followed Michael around the room, and the way her tiny fingers curled around his index, and the pout she got when she was sleepy.

Justin and Brian started accepting Michael's dinner invitations more often. When Justin pointed out that the weekends that they spent at Chez Novotny-Bruckner always seemed to correspond with Michael's weekends with JR, Brian insisted it was merely coincidence. Justin rolled his eyes and went back to perusing the Toys R Us catalogue.

* * *

"We're late," Justin called over his shoulder as they hurried up the front walk. His look clearly indicated that this was Brian's fault entirely.

Brian shrugged. "I didn't hear you complaining when my tongue was up your ass."

Justin huffed as he knocked loudly on the front door. "That's because I can't remember my name when your tongue is up my… Ben!" Justin plastered on a smile and hoped that the shadows on the porch hid the flush creeping up his cheeks.

"Hey guys. We'd, uh, about given up on you."

Justin smiled apologetically. "Sorry. We got… sort of tied up."

"You know what that's like, Professor," Brian drawled as he pushed past them into the house. "Mikey, we're here!"

Michael paused in setting the table, and managed to simultaneously smile and frown. "We thought you weren't coming!"

"Oh, we were coming," Brian said, ignoring the exasperated look Justin sent his way. He zeroed in on Jenny Rebecca. Some things were just more important than others, after all.

"Brian, I just put her…" Michael trailed off as Brian ignored him entirely -- as usual -- and lifted JR from her playpen.

"We brought something," Justin said from somewhere behind him. Near the closet. Where he was apparently hanging up their coats. Like it made a difference that Brian had shucked his leather jacket on the nearest chair. It was Mikey's place, for fucks sake.

"Wine?" Michael asked.

"Not until she's at least fourteen," Brian admonished as Justin pulled out the See and Say with a flourish.

"It teaches her to associate words with--"

"I know what it does, Justin, thank you!" Michael bit out. "You guys… you just… you have to stop buying her--"

"She likes it." Brian bounced the baby on his knee and grinned.

Michael tossed a look Ben's way. Ben shrugged. Brian pretended to ignore it all, busy pulling the cord on the See and Say while Justin made faces that kept diverting JR's attention from the educational merits of the toy.

"Uh. Dinner's ready, right Michael?" Ben finally said.

Michael rolled his eyes, and raised his voice to be heard over the repetitious "Cow… Mooooo" coming from the end of the sofa. He did, however, make a mental note to tell everyone at Woody's that Brian Kinney pulls off a righteous moo. In fact, he planned to tell everyone quite loudly.

"Right," Michael said. "Come on and sit down. There's tofu, bean sprouts, alfalfa--"

"I had a big lunch," Brian said.

Justin nudged Brian in the ribs and deftly took the baby from his grasp all in one smooth motion. "We'll be right there," he assured Michael, tucking the baby on his hip and easily avoiding Brian's reaching hand.

Justin had decided that he would be the one to help Jenny Rebecca at dinner, and god help anyone who got in his way.

* * *

Justin shoveled in the mushy peas, much to JR's delight, but Brian kept up a semi-erratic push-nudge-stroke on Justin's thigh all through dinner, and the distraction was enough that Brian was able to nab the pudding cup. Unlike Justin, Brian didn't much care where it ended up.

Michael carried JR at arms length when he took her up for her bath.

Somehow, though he handed the baby off to Ben, she appeared in Brian's arms not ten minutes later.

At story time, Michael plucked his daughter from Brian's lap.

"I'll do it," Brian said, reaching for the book.

Michael couldn't take it anymore. He was a patient man, a good man, and Brian had been his best friend since they were fourteen years old… but a man had his limits. "Back off!" he yelped, clutching his squirming 9-month-old to his chest. "Get your own baby!"

* * *

It was Lindsay and Melanie who took pity on them. Well, mostly Linds.

"It's so adorable," Lindsay said as she snuggled against Mel one night a few weeks later. "I just never imagined that Brian would be… would want…"

"A baby?" Mel snorted. "Brian doesn't have a paternal bone in his body. You see how he is with Gus, he barely acknowledges his own son!"

"That's not true," Linds replied, soothing a hand along Mel's stomach. "He's gotten very attached to Gus, you know that. Anyway, there's Justin to think of, too."

"Justin, I would trust. Justin would be fine. Brian wouldn't know how to take care of a cactus, never mind a baby."

"I think they just have a lot of… misplaced devotion. Maybe we could--"

"Kinney Taylor sperm is not coming anywhere near our fallopian tubes!"

Lindsay laughed. "No! I think they should start out a little… smaller."

* * *

"What the fuck is that?"

Lindsay grimaced, pushing past Brian into the loft. "I need your help."

Brian pinched the bridge of his nose and stared out at his now-empty hallway, before turning with a barely suppressed sigh. By the time he had slid the door shut, Lindsay had already shrugged out of her coat, nodded a distracted "Hello" to Justin, ignored the fact that Justin was hastily slipping into sweatpants, and was busy unwrapping something that was buried in the bottom of her wicker shopping basket. Some squirming, wheezing, coughing thing.

"We found her behind the gallery," Lindsay explained, holding up the… whatever the fuck it was… to their inspection.

"Her?"

"Oh my god, she's so tiny!"

"What the fuck is it?" Brian grimaced.

Lindsay rolled her eyes. "She's too young to be away from her mother," she explained, directing her comments to Justin. "We can't take care of her at the gallery, there's too much going on, and--"

"Do not tell me you expect us to take in that rodent," Brian said from behind a mug of coffee.

Justin had already picked up the little dog and cuddled her to his chest. The animal let out a tiny mew and snuggled closer. As one, two sets of big blue eyes looked up at Brian. He sighed.

Lindsay and Justin wore matching grins as Lindsay explained about bottle feeding every four hours and veterinary visits . By the time she left ten minutes later, Brian was letting the dog nibble on his finger as Justin's prepared her formula.

"You know," Justin said once the little thing was sufficiently latched onto the bottle, "she'll be really cute once she gets stronger. And we get her cleaned up."

"She's okay," Brian said. His palm practically dwarfed the little dog as he ran a hand gently over her side. The puppy huffed out a sigh and rubbed against his fingers.

Brian's face may or may not have quirked into a grin that he quickly suppressed.

"Look at the way her hair tufts up on her head," Justin said as he carefully disengaged the animal from Brian's finger and placed the wicker basket on the floor. "I think we should call her Spike."

"It's a fucking female, Justin."

"Buffy?"

"We're not naming that dog after some testosterone laden vampire, or the chick he bangs. Get a fucking grip."

Justin screwed up his face as he regarded the sleeping puppy. "Naming is important, Brian. She'll carry this name for the rest of her life! It's--"

"We'll name her Catharine," Brian said over his shoulder as he headed to the bedroom.

"Catharine," Justin mused as he watched the little puppy sleep. "Hmm… I guess we could -- wait a minute. Isn't Catharine the name of your favourite character on CSI?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

* * *

When Catharine graduated top in her class at Obedience School, Justin and Brian made sure that the entire family attended the ceremony. And brought gifts.


End file.
